“Can’t tell for sure until we send off details to the bureau and ATF. But my guess? Military—we found some camouflaged shrapnel. It’s primarily anti-personnel. But it works real good for blowing up anything nearby.”

“Like computers.”

“What?” the officer asked.

Thanks to her haywire hearing, she’d spoken too softly this time. “And computers.”

“Works real good against computers,” the Bomb Squad officer said. “Hard drive’s in a million pieces and most of them’re melted. Humpty Dumpty’s fucked.”

She thanked him. A crime scene team from Queens arrived in the RRV, a van filled with evidence collection equipment. She knew the two officers, an Asian American woman and a round young man from Georgia. He waved a greeting. They’d back her up but she’d walk the grid alone, per Lincoln Rhyme’s rule.

Sachs surveyed the smoky remains of Java Hut, hands on her hips.

Brother…

Not only is there nothing so distinctive as the smell of an IED but nothing contaminates a scene like one.

She donned the Tyvek coveralls—the deluxe version from Evident, which protect the wearer from dangerous materials as much as they protect the crime scene itself from the searchers. And because of the fumes she wore sealed goggles and a filtering mask.

Her first thought was: How is Lincoln going to hear me through the mask?

But then she remembered that she wasn’t going to be online with him, as she usually was, via radio or video hookup. She was alone.

That same chill, hollow sense from earlier wafted through her.

Forget it, she told herself angrily. Get to work.

And with evidence collection bags and equipment in one hand, she began to walk the grid.

Moving through the shambles of the place, Sachs concentrated on collecting what she could of the bomb itself, which, as the officer had warned, wasn’t very much. She was particularly dismayed that the suspect hadn’t used simply a demolition charge but one meant to kill.

Sachs concentrated on the entrance/exit route, the back doorway, where Bruns would have paused before he broke in and where the blast damage was minimal. She took dozens of samplars: trace from the alleyway and doorjamb, enough to draw a profile of substances common to this area of the city. Anything that was unique might represent evidence the perp had left and lead to his home or office.

How helpful this would be, she wasn’t sure. Here, as in any New York City alleyway, there were so many instances of trace evidence that it would be hard to isolate the relevant ones. Too much evidence is often as much of a problem as too little.

After she finished walking the grid she stripped off the overalls quickly—not because she was worried about contamination but because she was by nature claustrophobic and the confining plastic made her edgy.